Sanity is relevant. A true statement many could find fault with. I said that to one of my clients the other day and he asked me how I could say that, who do I think I am and where do I get off saying something like that? I said all the stops on the train and he left. I guess you cannot say such things when you are an antique salesperson. Who knew?
Yesterday I was out at a lovely antiques sale, and having real skill and talent for nabbing things much under their real value, I successfully bid on an Ernst Woballer vase for 42 dollars. That was my major prize of the day. I mean, I got two Annie No ashtrays, for twenty dollars, but, really, those are not big sellers. You could have a handful of those collecting dust at the back of your shop for a good 4 months until some poncey old man decides they fit in with his smoking-room décor. Which they probably do not.

Many would think antiques dealer is not the most interesting occupation for a young lady, but I love it. It is really quite simple work. You go out on weekends to some charming country locale or other, sit on a chair (make sure you invest in a comfortable back pillow because, really, prolonged amounts of time on a lawn chair are atrocious) bid on lovely things, eat treats that old ladies have made and wear a pretty sun dress. There are not usually many people under 40 there, but once I went to Ridge Mont and they were having an exquisite antiques party with a DJ and champagne and everything. It was very highbrow. I had the best time.

I think antiquing is really catching on with the younger generation. I know I love it. People do not understand how thrilling bidding and bargaining is, and finding the perfect piece. Moreover, you hardly have to do anything on weekdays. Well, I work on Friday in my shop in Salmion, just because the chi of the place is perfect. Other than that, I hire tons of good-looking young people who have a sense of taste in music, so that they can keep the tunes in a good state of repair. I swear, it is like MTV in my shops sometimes.

So far, I have 12 stores and I have named each one a different thing just because I could never have a disgusting brand name. They are in order of best feng shui:

Salmion: Sell Me On This
Janisburg: Rotunda
Sameysperle: Tandem Jump
Los Cocas: Mishee-o-wanee
San Regalo: Kittimitty
New Shannonsman: Slap!
Lance: Bass
Frankton: Lucky Luigi’s Good Time Parlour
Cassington: Mrs. Sprague’s Pocket Lint
Pelt: Put That In Your Pipe & Smoke It
Loopman’s Peak: Dirty Old Middle School
Van Janson: Loded Diper

Aren’t those the best? I like the last one the most, but Salmion’s is half pun so I like that one, too.

Salmion This
Sell Me On
Salmion
Sal Mi On

Hey, that is good! Maybe I should open a sushi place and call it Sal Mi On and nobody but me would know what it really meant. I would just say it was my name in Japanese if anyone asked. Nobody knows my real name so however they translated it, it would be absolutely fine. Some people are under the impression they know my real name, but only myself and my parents do, and my parents live in Australia now. I don’t know why they went; they said they simply wanted to try it out. I just always thought they meant what they said when they told me they never wanted me to be very far from them. Well, it was not I that moved. It never will be, either. I am never going to Australia. They always say I should visit, but why don’t they just come back home? Stupid Australia.

Sienna May Lord, that is my real name. How typical, to call me Sienna. It just seems like such an obvious name to call me. I would rather be, I don’t know, Meena Lascosa. That is actually my business name. I changed it when I left home to go to Business College. My parents were okay with it, but I think they were a bit hurt. Before they left for Australia last year, I was fine with telling people my real name, as long as it was kept in a menagerie of other choices so that no one would ever know which one it was. Now it’s different. I cut it out entirely, hopefully no one noticed. It can go live in Australia, with my parents for all I care.

For my part, I will stay here and be mysterious, which is my hobby. Being mysterious is so fun. It enchants people. Sure, they think you’re a bit odd, but they also seem so interested in you. They look at you as if they are trying desperately to understand what’s happening. For example, one day when I met a handsome man in a big boring meeting, who takes care of my accounts, I told him I was Stella Mansour. The “r” in Mansour purred out a bit long because I had just thought this up on the fly and was still trying to figure out how to end the name as I spoke. The next day he called me Ms. Mansour and I said, “Oh, just call me Jeanne.” He looked at me as if he was trying to see what my brain was doing inside that thatch of hazel hair and I simply smiled mysteriously.
He is not good-looking if that is what you are thinking, though. I would never date him; he is ugly as sin.

Making up names is only the first wacky tendency I have, there are so many more. One of the things I do is enter a store of mine, at random, and start spouting off wise sayings at anyone who looks annoying. For instance, the man I said “Sanity is relevant” to was ogling Annie No ashtrays like there was not tomorrow. He said they’d look great with the décor of his smoking room. They probably would not have.

Sanity is relevant, though, it really is true. There is such a thin line between acting “normally” and “insanely”. Say you are sitting a restaurant somewhere, why is there only one way to sit? Frontward, facing toward the table, upright. Turn your chair backward and all of a sudden, you are not quite mentally stable. I am not saying I would, it is just that we are so frightened of appearing “weird”, that many of us are quite uninteresting in result. Being different is all of a sudden a state that you can diagnose. It makes me want to ask if I can eat in a potted plant in the restaurant, just to shake them up.

Being so eccentric is quite shallow, of course. It takes one away from their real problems and preoccupies them with silly mind games. Of course, it is like that, it would be, wouldn’t it? I would go to Australia. I just wish my parents would sell me on it.